Finding sex with a click of the mouse

Fulfilling sexual fantasies has never been easier, even if you live in the sticks.

As rural police departments, such as those in Chillicothe, Mansfield and Zanesville, have reported an increase in obvious street-level prostitution, the inside variety is harder to spot but likely just as plentiful.

While Craigslist was once on the go-to list for online escort ads, it backed away from those types of posts and has since been largely replaced by Backpage. People can search and post ads by location, 16 of which are in Ohio and include Chillicothe, Mansfield, Zanesville and Sandusky alongside the metros.

“Backpage has changed the dynamic so much,” said Lisa Thompson, who does outreach and education at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “The reach of the Internet has brought some things to people they never would have sought it before.”

An Illinois sheriff has made shutting down the site his mission, a move that has been met with a mixture of responses even among his fellow law enforcement officials.

Katie Hail-Jares, a Sex Workers Outreach Project board member, works with women prostituting in Washington, D.C., where a recent study indicated about half of women prostituting were engaging in both street and online prostitution. Online prostitution often opens sex workers up to wealthier clients, meaning they can make more money there than on the street, Jares said.

And it’s a lucrative deal for Backpage, too. AIM Group, a media research and consulting company, estimated that in 2012, Backpage took in more than $22 million from prostitution ads, ranking it first among five similar sites in the nation.

While Backpage has a reputation for being a breeding ground for sex traffickers — Shared Hope International reported nearly 500 victims of child sex trafficking across the nation have been linked to Backpage — Jares views it as a safer place for women prostituting.

“The advantage with Backpage is they’re working indoors. It’s much safer. You can screen clients. You can hire bodyguards,” Jares said.

Some ads are posted by women such as Grace Marie, who is a dominatrix in Los Angeles and has used social media to voice concern about the push to shut it down.

“As a system, Backpage is decidedly anti-pimp. It creates a direct and easy-to-use interface between providers and clients,” Grace Marie said when contacted by the Associated Press. She uses her first and middle names in her work and asked that her last name not be used, citing safety concerns and the fact that her work is illegal.

While possibly safer in some regards, it’s not without its dangers. In July, a woman was attacked in Charleston, West Virginia, by a man who answered her Backpage ad. Police have alleged he gave her a choice of rape or death when she answered the door.

While she was able to get his gun and used it to kill him, police found evidence that led them to believe the man used Backpage to find other victims.

Man on a mission

In Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, Sheriff Thomas Dart has been focused on shutting Backpage down. He was key in convincing Master Card and Visa to end payment services for the site this summer.

“Whoever it is that’s facilitating these horrible crimes, we can’t just sit back and say, ‘Well, that’s OK. I guess it’s a business model,’ ” Dart told the AP this month.

Backpage, which has since moved to free ads and payment options including bitcoins, is fighting back. It has filed a lawsuit against Dart, alleging a public official shouldn’t be interfering with a legal business’ ability to do e-commerce.

Liz McDougall, the company’s general counsel, has long said Backpage simply provides space for the ads but doesn’t create the content, according to the AP.

When it comes to fighting sex trafficking, “I am a true believer that this is one of the most valuable tools there is on the Internet,” said McDougall, who’s based in Los Angeles.

Backpage sends suspicious ads to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and also donates ad space and money to Children of the Night, a nonprofit that helps children trafficked for sex.

While the case is pending, last week, Backpage was denied a temporary injunction it had filed against Dart.

Foe or useful crime fighting tool?

The site can be a bit of a Catch-22 for law enforcement. On one hand, its service makes sex trafficking children and others easier. However, it also provides information on those cases and often is used for reverse stings, such as one in Mansfield that ended with 30 arrests in May.

Women using Backpage are coming into everyone’s jurisdiction, said Mansfield Police Chief Ken Coontz. While women arrested in the May sting were mostly from Mansfield, Coontz said one came from New York.

In Chillicothe, police Chief Keith Washburn said while officials think most of the city’s prostitution is on the street, they have made arrests through Backpage.

“As we have enhanced our enforcement techniques and we learn the criminal’s way of thinking, they learn our way of thinking at the same time, and it’s kind of like a cat-and-mouse game,” Washburn said. “If we eliminate Backpage, then another website will pop up.”

Making sex for sale harder to find is the point of the National Center of Exploitation’s support of Dart, Thompson said.

“This type of activity should be hard to find. It shouldn’t be as easy to find a child for sex as it is (to find) a lawn mower,” Thompson said.

And sometimes, it isn’t so easy.

China Krys Darrington, of Akron, spent more than a decade prostituting, but now is a recovery coach and public speaker.

During human trafficking training in Chillicothe this summer, Darrington said she never used obvious sites such as Backpage. Instead, she had been connected to the “dark web” where guns, sex and drugs are sold in ways that mask IP addresses and require certain validations.

To be validated for a certain escort site, Darrington said she had to have sex with an existing member who then vouched for her with a review. The method was an attempt to weed out law enforcement officials posing as prostitutes.

First Amendment freedom

Pressure on Backpage isn’t new — it’s just gaining momentum. Nearly a year ago, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, along with attorney generals from nearly every state, urged Congress to pass the Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act.

Backpage’s attorneys have cited the First Amendment as why the website’s business of selling ads is legal.

“We always have (constitutional) issues when you’re talking about open communications,” said Ross County Sheriff’s Capt. T.J. Hollis. “The courts are still struggling with where those lines are at. ... And it’s also helpful to be able to sit back and hopefully pick up information to lead you in a direction of where someone may be at risk or in danger.”

Thompson said she is frustrated by the support for Backpage, saying if sex ads were instead posted on a community bulletin board at a coffee shop, everybody would be outraged.

“But because it’s on the Internet, it’s like that should be permitted,” she said.